Did Arizona’s Republican lawmakers waste $530,000 on an election fraud unit?

The budget pushed through the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature in 2019 and signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in June of that year gave Republican state Attorney General Mark Brnovich $530,000 to create an election fraud unit.

The money came from Arizona’s $37.1 million share of a settlement with Wells Fargo over fake accounts and other violations.

The AG’s spokesman, Ryan Anderson, said at the time, “Consider us the ‘MythBusters’ of election fraud claims and rumors. If there is fraud, let’s investigate it, let’s prosecute it and work to eradicate it. If there’s not fraud, then let’s give the public the confidence they deserve in their elections.”

Not long after the election in November, that’s exactly what Brnovich did.

Or tried.

AG’s office investigated multiple claims

He came out strongly against the notion that there was election fraud in Arizona.

He said in part, “In Arizona, there was a prediction that the (Republican-controlled) Legislature would flip. It didn’t. There were some congressional districts that supposedly leaned Democrat. They didn’t flip. The county recorder here who oversees elections went from Democrat to Republican. The county attorney remained Republican. That’s the reality. There is no evidence, there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe that the election results will change.”

He added that the same was true of Joe Biden’s win in the presidential race.

Other claims were investigated as well. Like the Sharpie “bleed-throughs” that allegedly had ballots rejected.

“We were able to determine that did not affect anyone’s vote,” Brnovich said, adding. “They also did a random audit of 2% of the precincts, and it came back 100% that there wasn’t any statistical anomalies or errors. We are literally talking about less than 200 voted that are in question. Even if it was possible that those votes flip — those 200 votes — I do not think it will make a difference in Arizona, just because of the numbers.”

Ducey defended the election as well

That’s how it was.

The counting and verification process went on. Then, after all of Arizona’s 15 counties certified their election results, counties run by Republicans and Democrats, Gov. Doug Ducey participated in the official certification of the election results, then defended Arizona’s voting system and review process on a long Twitter string.

The governor said in part:

I’ve been pretty outspoken about Arizona’s election system, and bragged about it quite a bit, including in the Oval Office. And for good reason …

We’ve got ID at the polls. We review EVERY signature (every single one) on early ballots — by hand — unlike other states that use computers. Prohibitions on ballot harvesting. Bipartisan poll observers. Clear deadlines, including no ballots allowed after Election Day …

The problems that exist in other states simply don’t apply here …

Yet Republicans refuse to accept this

Nine failed court actions later – all brought by Republicans and led by Trump cultist Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, and what Ducey and Brnovich said has proven true.

The people responsible for conducting fair and honest elections in Arizona did their jobs.

(Unless you believe that all of those Republican officials, including Ducey and Brnovich, are part of the conspiracy?)

Apparently, Ward believes that the safeguards put in place by Republican lawmakers were supposed to guarantee that only Republican candidates would win.

And she’s been joined by a number of other Republican politicians, including Rep. Andy Biggs, who was elected by way of that very system and still joined Republican senators from other states, who know nothing about us, in challenging the integrity of Arizona’s Electoral College votes.

So, we have a Republican-initiated budget expenditure creating an election fraud unit run by Republicans that Republicans who don’t like the results choose to ignore.

What the hell did we waste $530,000 for?

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Arizona Republic can be found here ***